In the last couple of months my child has had multiple visits to a pediatric cardiologist and often think “look at this guy, he’s making good money AND helps kids to have a better life, even saving kids’ lives. That’s awesome. Damn, my work only helps to increase the gap between poor and rich people; shame on me”. Can’t say for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me if even this guy would wish a different job at some point.
Black Swan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Opening a boutique hotel in Costa Rica with an > attached outdoor / wilderness shop is still the > dream though. i’d like to open/operate a beach-front bar and grill. no real preference where.
While I empathize with some of the points you make, part of me wants to punch you in the face. Get a hobby, do some charity, or quit your job. You’re a 27 year-old with a secure job likely paying you over $100K a year during the biggest economic downturn in a nearly century. You won the f’n lottery man. Are you out of your f*cking mind? 21% of the world currently is living in povery (less than $1.25 a day). There is war, riots, famine, disease and genocide happening all across the world. Every f*cking day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save someone else. Every f*cking day, someone, somewhere takes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. A child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. You’re here complaining that you don’t like sitting in a cube working in front of a computer? Quit your job. There are thousands of people who will gladly take it and appreciate it.
Mr. Pink Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > While I empathize with some of the points you > make, part of me wants to punch you in the face. > Get a hobby, do some charity, or quit your job. > > You’re a 27 year-old with a secure job likely > paying you over $100K a year during the biggest > economic downturn in a nearly century. You won > the f’n lottery man. > > Are you out of your f*cking mind? 21% of the world > currently is living in povery (less than $1.25 a > day). There is war, riots, famine, disease and > genocide happening all across the world. Every > f*cking day, somewhere in the world, somebody > sacrifices his life to save someone else. Every > f*cking day, someone, somewhere takes a conscious > decision to destroy someone else. A child watches > her mother beaten to death on the steps of a > church. > > You’re here complaining that you don’t like > sitting in a cube working in front of a computer? > Quit your job. There are thousands of people who > will gladly take it and appreciate it. Expectations can be a real b!tch. Keeping things in perspective and keeping your expectations grounded in reality is one of the hardest things to do for a lot of people, myself included. Good post.
There’s still nothing wrong with contemplating the purpose of your life or the satisfaction that you get from your job.
Mr. Pink Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > While I empathize with some of the points you > make, part of me wants to punch you in the face. > Get a hobby, do some charity, or quit your job. > > You’re a 27 year-old with a secure job likely > paying you over $100K a year during the biggest > economic downturn in a nearly century. You won > the f’n lottery man. > > Are you out of your f*cking mind? 21% of the world > currently is living in povery (less than $1.25 a > day). There is war, riots, famine, disease and > genocide happening all across the world. Every > f*cking day, somewhere in the world, somebody > sacrifices his life to save someone else. Every > f*cking day, someone, somewhere takes a conscious > decision to destroy someone else. A child watches > her mother beaten to death on the steps of a > church. > > You’re here complaining that you don’t like > sitting in a cube working in front of a computer? > Quit your job. There are thousands of people who > will gladly take it and appreciate it. Smile they said, because things could be worse. So I smiled and they were. I kind of hate the line of reasoning Pink puts out there. It’s like a guilt trip and in my opinion is not helpful to anyone and attempts to objectify human suffering for some kind of bogus therapy. Focus on the good stuff in life. For you: running, nature, non-rainy weather, etc. Helping others is a good thing in life, but thinking about an abstract position in the global hierarchy of of suffering is kind of pointless for everyone and doesn’t really do anybody any good.
As someone who gets depressed from time to time, I have given considerate thought as to one of the main reasons people get into these funks. Think of what happens when you put a small amount of dye into a bottle of, say, water, and then shake it up. The entire color becomes tinted if not completely darkened. In this analogy the dye is the sadness and the water is all that is positive and good in one’s life, the things we often forget due to the nature of the fact that most people seem to focus on the negative and not positive when they get into funks… Rationally we know that there is probably a lot to feel good about in our lives, that we are loved by our friends and family, that are lives do matter, - but we forget! The water is not clear. The OP will make up his mind, or maybe he won’t and deal with status quo(which may be the ideal choice at this time). Sometimes just feeling that you need to ACT, that you NEED TO DECIDE NOW, can create stressors greater than what got you there in the first place. The key then is to create tangible distractions (i.e. like going to the gym, having sex, reading, watching a movie). Note this is not a means to avoid a decision, but will hopefully make your daily life a little more pleasant until you finally decide- unpressured, at your own volition- to make one.
I think it boils down to the question: Does money mean everything to you? From what I’ve seen, the higher the compensation the more depressed/sad people could get. Unless of course, you are one of the lucky few who have the most amazing job plus great pay. Let’s face it, getting something like that is almost like winning the lottery. If money does mean everything, then maybe you should bust you ass, work for a few years, make the money and then do whatever it is that is your passion. No point running after money when you are wasting your time and life getting depressed and you don’t want to arrive at a point in life where you’ll look back and then regret not utilizing your time that made you a happier person. Fact is, life is short and you only get to live once. You need to decide how best to enjoy while you are on planet earth. Whenever I get depressed, I think about all those guys who spend years in jungles or forests searching for creature or plants, sweating it out, sleeping in tents etc. I have my doubts whether they actually make money that could to close to what anyone in AF might be making. But in the end, they always seem to be the happiest people in the world. It’s not a very good example, but I hope you understand where I’m getting at. I guess the same could go for people who open restaurants, people who open some sort of a shop, people who join non-profits, I could go on and on. Cheer up, if you don’t like your job, I would suggest you to sit back, think about what really is your passion and build your skills around it. No point slogging away for The Man and you suddenly hit retirement age and you are waiting on social security payments.
Yeah I also always go through ups and downs. Pretty normal. Get some vacations. On the comment of some poster who wrote that you end up becoming your job, this is soooo true. After 3 years of working in financial services, I cannot believe how boring I have become. I m having more and more trouble not talking about work, and I end up boring everyone around me with this banking crap.
Mr. Pink Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > You’re a 27 year-old with a secure job likely > paying you over $100K a year during the biggest > economic downturn in a nearly century. You won > the f’n lottery man. I worked 90+ hour weeks consistently for the past 3 years to get here, have had to be willing to move wherever there was a good opening (4 times in 3 years), live alone and without family in each city and have major school debt. Over the period, I averaged around $50k a year. At one point I was making $42k a year in a city with a masters degree and having passed all CFA parts. Only recently did I finally break through to my current income / job. I hardly call that winning the lottery. The only people that would ever refer to it as “winning the lottery” are the people that can’t grasp the level of work / perseverance it takes to get here from an unheard of school. > Are you out of your f*cking mind? 21% of the world > currently is living in povery (less than $1.25 a > day). There is war, riots, famine, disease and > genocide happening all across the world. Every > f*cking day, somewhere in the world, somebody > sacrifices his life to save someone else. Every > f*cking day, someone, somewhere takes a conscious > decision to destroy someone else. A child watches > her mother beaten to death on the steps of a > church. If you’re off your soap box now, I’d like to put in a word here you hippy. You’re correlating unhappiness with hardship, which just isn’t accurate. If anything, there is a direct inverse correlation between wealth and happiness. Who knows, maybe the meaning of life for you is to always have everything and fool yourself into thinking life goes on forever, what I was discussing was more a feeling of lack of purpose. Losing the sense of purpose from your life is much worse than losing your life in my mind. One of the reasons I do things like challenge myself to run 50 miles…for fun. In a related example, take combat for instance, there’s a great book called WAR by a veteran named Junger which embodies most of the things you’ve just mentioned. Here’s some quotes from it: “A few weeks ago we were hanging out with a family I know, and the talk turned to how rough the fighting was in Afghanistan. The mother, a woman in her thirties, asked Brendan if there was anything he missed about the experience. Brendan looked at her and said, without any irony, “Yes, almost all of it.” I think what Brendan meant was that he missed an existence where every detail mattered–whether you tied your shoelaces, whether you cleaned your rifle–and you never had to question the allegiance of your friends. As Brendan said at another point, “There are guys in the platoon who straight-up hate each other-- but they’d all die for each other.” Once they’ve been exposed to that, it’s very hard for these guys to go back to a seemingly meaningless and ill-defined civilian life.” “War is a lot of things and its useless to pretend that exciting isn’t one of them. It’s insanely exciting. The machinery of war and the sounds it makes and the urgency of its use and the consequences of almost everything about it are the most exciting things anyone engaged in war will ever know. Soldiers discuss that fact with each other and eventually with their chaplains and their shrinks and maybe even with their spouses, but the public will never hear about it. It’s just not something that many people want to acknowledged. War is supposed to feel bad because undeniably bad things happen in it, but for a nineteen-year-old at the working end of a .50 cal during a firefight that everyone comes out of okay, war is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of. In some ways twenty minutes of combat is more life than you could scrape together in a lifetime of doing something else. Combat isn’t where you might die—though that does happen—it’s where you find out whether you keep on living. Don’t underestimate the power of that revelation. Don’t underestimate the things young men will wager in order to play that game one more time.” Before you say, “well then join the military”, the point of this post was partly to toss around ideas like that and sort of discuss finding purpose as well as a little venting. Trying to figure out what will be most important for me in 5 years. Probably the only reason I’m not in the military is that I feel it’d interfere with my ability to find someone and raise a family.
“War is supposed to feel bad because undeniably bad things happen in it, but for a nineteen-year-old at the working end of a .50 cal during a firefight that everyone comes out of okay, war is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of.” That is an excellent line. I wish I had written it. I’m not a massive believer in the ability of war to solve problems, but you don’t have to be a warmonger to appreciate the beauty of that quote.
Just like how if aliens came and starting attacking earth, humanity would be unity as never before. And all this personal gain , work your butt off for a salary crap goes out the window.
iteracom Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Just like how if aliens came and starting > attacking earth, humanity would be unity as never > before. And all this personal gain , work your > butt off for a salary crap goes out the window. Are you purposely describing the plot of Independence Day?
Black Swan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Are you purposely describing the plot of > Independence Day? Best movie EVA. I’d probably go more South Park style and nuke Denmark in the alien invasion scenario. Sorry Danes, desperate times call for desperate measures.
I work remote twice a week which makes things more interesting, you can try talking to your manager about something like that.